Weather Cape Town

Weather Cape Town, A nurse working at a city of Cape Town Clinic in Du Noon Township collapsed on Tuesday while attending to patients in scorching temperatures.

The South African Weather Service’s Cape Town client liaison officer, Gail Linnow, said the temperature on Tuesday in the West C Coast area close to Du Noon had reached 39°C degrees.

The clinic, which has substandard ventilation, was built during the construction of RDP houses in the area and was previously used as a storage facility. A patient who had been waiting in the reception area from 8am to 12 noon, witnessed the nurse collapsing. She said that when the nurse collapsed patients had screamed for a doctor and other nurses for help.

A source working at the clinic, who opted not to be named for fear of dismissal for talking to the press media, said the clinic staff were working in “a very bad environment”. She said on Tuesday that when the nurse collapsed the waiting area was full of mothers with young children seeking medication.

She said the waiting area was a tight space with little room to move and that there were no windows, only entrance and exit doors which were kept open.

The clinic she said, served Du Noon residents as well as residents of Doornbach informal settlement.

“The building should be condemned. The roof is too low (it is a closed space). In the waiting area where patients wait there are no windows,” said the staff member.

Mayoral Committee Member for Health Lungiswa James confirmed that the Du Noon clinic building did not offer an operational environment for staff or patients.

James said when she visited the clinic in June last year and she had noticed that the clinic was very cramped and she wasn’t happy with the clinics general condition.

She said she had gone back and discussed it with the city’s executive director for health, Dr Ivan Bromfield, after which R1m was allocated from the city’s capital budget to revamp the clinic.

She said work was supposed to start last month but was delayed due to the buildings’ electrical circuitry.

She promised that the clinic would be revamped before winter this year.

“The building is not in good condition. We need to do something about it and we will sort it out,” she said